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Sad news, even if the title is a bit of fun. Horse, also known as Cat and How Much!!??, sadly turned in his Hashing shoes on Monday at the age of somewhere in the region of 85 years.

Horse has been an ever present (apart from his regular forays to jazz festivals) since the Mountin’; Sheep H3 was set up, recording 361 r*ns and numerous Hare-ings. He also managed quite a few more than that with Cardiff H3 I understand.

Horse was also one of the key players in the late-lamented SMEG H3. When I moved down here in the early 1990’s I was at the time the UK On Sec for the Hash. I looked in my own directory for somewhere to carry on my nefarious Hashing career and found SMEG. It suggested a regular r*n. I picked up the phone and was confronted by this mellifluous voice which agreed that it was regular – annual! That prompted me to set up MSH3, but I still attended every SMEG that was going (and even found a lady friend through it!! (she actually fancied my dog not me)).

Amazingly, for one so careful with his money, he doesn’t leave an unpaid Hash Account – although he did try to pass off an out of date pound coin at the last but one MSH3 in Lllannnyyyddiyyyyr! (You had to be there to understand this!)

Half the time it was difficult to know what he was talking about. Horse and Spike Milligan shared a love of what can only be described as “Talking Bollocks” – ‘one of it’s legs are both’ being a favourite comment! I’m sure that if he had a ‘last word’ it would have been something along the lines of “I told them I was ill!”

Obituaries like this lend themselves to being a bit maudlin, but knowing Horse as well as I did makes me want to make it as fun as possible.

He was not only passionate about Hashing, but also about (draw a deep breath now)

Real ale – can’t argue with that!!

Cricket – even if he supported Glamorgan

Jazz – kept him away from the Hash!!

Folk music – there were two empty seats in Abergavenny for Steeleye Span last night, were they his and Jenny’s??

Community transport – heaven help those poor folk who got on his Green Routes free bus

Charity walks – mainly for Alzheimers, but he couldn’t always remember. Took loads of money off us anyway

Voluntary work with the Wye Valley AONB

Community hydro-electric scheme – TAP (Tintern Angiddy Project) kept him occupied for many a year and found him dealing with Welsh Govt Ministers. Unfortunately didn’t quite come to fruition.

Spitfires – Duxford was a bit of a stomping ground for him.

Bees – found him hanging around Open Gardens trying to flog “bee-friendly plant seeds” to innocent punters – made a fortune apparently .

Cats – miaouw

I’m sure I’ve missed a load of others, one could never tell with Horse.

From this list you’ll see that he will be sorely missed, not just by us.

One final thing – whatever the weather I don’t recall ever seeing him on the Hash in anything but very short shorts! What was in those shorts occasionally wasn’t, but that’s another story!

RIP Horse – one of nature’s real Gentlemen, with the emphasis on Gentle. I can’t think of anyone who didn’t like/ love Horse. He made everyone he came into contact with feel they were really special whether they were younger or older (not that many of them) than him.

It’s probably wrong to publish this obit ‘on-line’ as one of his few failings was an inability to get to grips with the dreaded internet!!

As all members of MSH3 – and our many visitors – know, trying to keep in contact with such a large number of people is sometimes difficult (LOL). To this end new Sheep – Scrag End – has developed a Google Group, which apparently means one e-mail can get to us all – wonders of modern technology – we’ll have Faceache and Twatter soon!

If you want to make sure you don’t miss anything to do with MSH3 let Scraggy know on screscenzi@talktalk.net If you sign up you’ll receive a copy of every message posted to the group as they are posted.